Riptide (1984)

NO ONE REMEMBERS THIS!!!!! When I was little, I liked this more than the A-Team, and that is high raise because the A-Team had Mr. T and I was living in the 80s at the right age to think Mr. T was the greatest thing since sliced bread.

But I liked Riptide more, and Dad agreed with me....which was weird because at that age...well...I was stuck defending Mr. T and the A-Team against a jaded vet.

But there is a reason for this, and after re-watching it as an adult, I can push it off to one of the shows. Cody (Perry King) gets ahold of a pacifistic self-help book and takes to it like a 1960s New Age freak.

The plot of the show is the usual detective show tropes...but the episode is really centered around the frustration this new age self-help book causes everyone involved with Cody, and, of course, ends in a rejection.

But it is done brilliantly, so much so that it doesn't stand out as a paint-by-numbers detective show, it has actual characters not just gimmicks. The stories are fresh and entertaining. And, watching them again in the 2010s after the end of the 2nd Golden Age of Television...it still stands up as a great show.